Main content
Computer programming - JavaScript and the web
Course: Computer programming - JavaScript and the web > Unit 6
Lesson 8: Further learningWhat to learn next
Congratulations on learning how to manipulate your webpages with JavaScript!
Using new HTML features
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are all evolving technologies. They include many features that we didn't cover in this course, and they continue to change to meet the needs of web developers.
Here are some examples of new features to explore:
Browse more web technologies or search the web for the feature you're interested in—it might actually exist!
Bringing in data to your page
Many webpages let the users interact with dynamic data, like from a database or service. If you have your webpage hosted on your own server, you can bring it in using AJAX. If you want to bring the data from an external server and that server makes that data available to others, you can bring it in using their public API.
Note that our webpages environment only allows you to bring in data from certain servers, and those servers must be called via SSL (
https://
). Check your developer console to see if you're trying to bring in data from a disallowed server, and use a development environment other than Khan Academy if needed.Keeping up to date
Browsers release improvements often and the web development community is an active one. One of our favorite ways to keep up-to-date with what's new is to subscribe to Frontend Focus and JavaScript Weekly, newsletters with links to articles and demos. Of course, whenever you learn something new, you should try it out to really understand how it works.
Practice, practice, practice!
Want to join the conversation?
- Question @Pamela: How about a module on Ruby next?(14 votes)
- That probably won't happen anytime soon. Right now, I would guess the next up (after they work more on the current tutorials) would be JQuery or Python.(40 votes)
- What languages do most game-makers use?(20 votes)
- That seems to be C++ for the AAA games.
But the most game developers make games for phones. So that's Java for Android and Objective-C or Swift for iOS.
Many indies use Unity3D as well. You can use that for PC, Mac, Linux, Android, Blackberry and iOS. (some of these require payment I believe) Unity3D uses UnityScript (much like JavaScript) or C#.(32 votes)
- I want to make a website. I am fairly proficient in HTML/CSS, and have some practice with JS and JQuery. What language(s) should I learn to create a website where people can upload items to sell?(10 votes)
- It's totally up to you! Most major languages has some built-in utility to help you create servers so the choices are infinite! You even have a relatively large amount of choice in how to store your site's data (the stuff people want to sell)! You can even use JavaScript to create your server!
Here are some languages that you can create your server with and links to tutorials.
JavaScript
Are you surprised? You can run JavaScript on the command line! All you have to do is download NodeJS (https://nodejs.org/en/download/) and you're ready to go.
Here's a list of resources to get you started with NodeJS including how to create a server (anything not on the list can be found with a quick Google Search): http://stackoverflow.com/a/5511507/4147306
Python
Python is a language that's relatively similar structurally to JavaScript. Python is used by the likes of Google and even Khan Academy on their servers.
Here's a link to download Python on your computer: https://www.python.org/downloads/
An article on getting started with Python: https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted/
A tutorial on making and running your own custom Python server: http://ruslanspivak.com/lsbaws-part1/
Here are some ways you can store and manipulate your data
SQL
SQL is taught on Khan Academy and is used in many servers.
MongoDB
MongoDB is a NoSQL database, meaning that data is not structured in an SQL like format (i.e. tables). Data in MongoDB is stored in a JSON-like documents making it familiar to anyone who's used JavaScript before.
Also there are multiple frameworks out there that can help you create your app with minimal hassle (Meteor for instance).
Hope this helps!(24 votes)
- Pamela, is there a website I can use to keep going in HTML/CSS?(5 votes)
- You could go to w3schools they have tutorials for almost all the programming languages(4 votes)
- How would I embed code for a game in my webpage? I'm trying to figure out how to make a games website, and you didn't really explain how to draw things directly from scratch. I tried using the <canvas> tag, but I looked up how to use it, and it's really complicated. Is there an easier way?(5 votes)
- You need the Processing.js graphics plugin.
Download and extract this ZIP and follow the instructions in the ReadMe:
https://github.com/Team-Code/KA_Offline(5 votes)
- How do you get a blank webpage that is not on Khan Academy and that you can actually do your work on?
-Thanks for reading!(3 votes)- Use a text editor (WordPad, TextPad, etc.) and put in your HTML. When you save, make sure to end it with .html like this:
aWebpage.html
Right click on the icon in the folder where you saved it, and selectOpen with
, then your desired browser.(11 votes)
- What else is there except for jQuery, D3, Bootstrap and Backbone JS?(4 votes)
- There is literally thousands of computer programming languages. Here is a list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages(4 votes)
- I was wondering how to add a slideshow. Could you please tell me?(4 votes)
- "Note that our webpages environment only allows you to bring in data from certain servers, and those servers must be called via SSL (https://)."
Are there plans for Khan Academy to switch from SSL to TSL?(3 votes)- If your Chrome browser shows a green security lock next to the address bar, the connection uses the TLS protocol.
Should a server use SSL, the security lock would be red and struck through.
Both SSL and TLS do use what we call an 'SSL Certificate'. It should really be called 'Certificate for use with SSL or TLS'.
The fact that SSL is the more common name, and many people haven't even heard of TLS, may be causing some confusion.
So KA is in fact already using TLS.(5 votes)
- I was wondering if on Khan Academy it is allowed to use cookies. I know how to use them, and I know you can use them, but is it going against the program guidelines?(3 votes)
- You can use cookies on Khan Academy, but it's much better to use the more modern alternative
localStorage
. I've included some links to information aboutlocalStorage
and how to use it in case you're interested.
w3schools tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_webstorage.asp
MDN reference for theStorage
object (localStorage
is just aStorage
object): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Storage
In depth article aboutlocalStorage
: http://diveintohtml5.info/storage.html(4 votes)